


Sleepless

by dannyphantomyeetme



Series: #thesquad UFS [10]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Anxiety, M/M, rantfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25014982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannyphantomyeetme/pseuds/dannyphantomyeetme
Summary: Danny can't sleep.
Relationships: Danny Fenton/Wesley Weston
Series: #thesquad UFS [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686805
Kudos: 46





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a rantfic about how I was feeling a while back and posted it on Tumblr, but I forgot to post it here. It kind belongs in #TheSquad but it also doesn't because I don't know when or how it would happen.

It’s one AM on a Wednesday night, and Danny can’t sleep. Wes has been asleep for three hours. He fell asleep about halfway through The Shining and has been slumped half against the headboard, half on Danny since then.

“Wes?” Danny whispers, but the only reaction is a sigh.

He can hear soft music coming from Jazz’s room, which either means she’s still up, or she fell asleep while reading again. Aside from the music, the house is quiet, which means there is absolutely nothing to stop Danny’s mind from shooting in a thousand directions.

Except it’s not doing that. Not really. His body feels tense and his heart is beating a little faster than it should. He’s breathing normally, but the air doesn’t seem to be filling his lungs right. He feels lightheaded.

He’s had enough anxiety attacks to know that if he doesn’t calm down, he’s going to have one soon if he isn’t already. But he doesn’t know why, because his mind is blank. The kind of blank it gets when his thoughts can’t seem to focus on one given thing for long enough for him to register what he’s thinking about in the first place.

He doesn’t think he’s thinking about anything, except thinking. Does that count as thinking? He’s using the word ‘thinking’ too much.

He presses his eyes closed, because maybe if he just pretends to be asleep for long enough he’ll fall asleep for real.

It’s almost two o’clock in the morning, so maybe he’s slept for a while, or maybe time’s just going very fast. Wes has somehow ended up on his side, with his back to Danny and Danny’s blanket wrapped around him. Danny’s laying down, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. They don’t really glow bright enough to see anymore unless you’re looking at them from the corner of your eye. Danny tries it a few times, turning his head back as if he can somehow catch them glowing, but when he looks right at them all he sees is darkness.

Danny thinks maybe he should get up, make himself some tea, and try to sleep again later, but he’s worried that if he gets up, Wes will wake up and start asking him questions. And Danny needs to talk, he does, it’s just that he’s not sure what he needs to talk about exactly. His stomach is rolling and he feels like he’s gonna cry but he doesn’t know why.

He feels… alone.

Why does he feel alone? Wes is right next to him. They’ve had a pretty great day: They went for a walk in the park and held hands for most of it, and then they went to a deli near Danny’s house and got some of those pre-packaged sandwiches that look really good but taste kind of processed, walked to Danny’s house and watched movies all night. It’s not the most romantic day they’ve ever had, but Danny had enjoyed Wes’s company.

It’s just that for most of the day, Danny hadn’t been able to tell what Wes was thinking. He’s gotten used to being in Wes’s space all the time, and things are different now that Wes isn’t basically living at Fenton Works anymore. Danny’s happy that Wes’s dad is better, of course. He knows how homesick Wes was feeling, and how glad he was that he could go home.

But things are different.

It’s like they’ve been doing this relationship thing backward: They started out domestic, being in each other’s space all the time, and now everything is new and exciting and sometimes a little awkward, and Wes had been aloof all day and Danny didn’t know if it was because he’d woken up grumpy, or slept badly, or if he’d skipped breakfast again, and when Danny asked if he was okay Wes seemed genuinely surprised and said “yeah, fine. Why?” and Danny hadn’t been able to explain why the way Wes was acting seemed foreign to him, because he’s always dry and sarcastic and frowning too much, so why did today feel different?

Danny’s eyes go to Wes, who’s turning in his sleep. He looks peaceful, and Danny doesn’t want to wake him up, but his hand still twitches with the need to reach out and make sure he’s really there.

“Wes?” he says again, knowing Wes won’t wake up.

Danny looks at his alarm clock and sighs. It’s almost 2:30 AM. He doesn’t think he’s gonna fall asleep anytime soon. He goes intangible and sinks through the bed, through the floor, into the kitchen, but then he doesn’t know what he’s doing there.

Back up to bed. It’s almost three AM. Then it’s four AM. He’s probably slept again. Or maybe he just zoned out. He feels dehydrated and reaches for the water he usually keeps on his nightstand, then remembers that he never made the conscious decision to go to bed, so there isn’t any water there.

“Danny?”

He looks at Wes, who’s looking back at him sleepily.

“Hey,” Danny says, softly, like he’s been asleep all this time. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Weird dream,” Wes says, nudging a little closer. An arm appears from underneath the blanket to wrap around Danny’s waist and Danny rolls onto his side, presses his forehead against Wes’s and pretends the breath of relief he takes is a sleepy sigh.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asks.

“No. It wasn’t a bad one,” Wes says.

His eyes have closed again, but Danny can’t look away from his face and goes a little cross-eyed with it. Wes has long eyelashes and freckles, and he’s sort of pretty. That isn’t usually the first thought that comes to his head when he sees Wes. Maybe ‘handsome’, maybe ‘stressed’, maybe ‘focussed’, but not ‘pretty’.

“Are you okay?” Wes asks, and Danny startles a little. He thought Wes had fallen back asleep. “I can hear you thinking.”

“I-” Danny says, and then burrows closer instead of finishing the sentence.

Wes moves the blanket a little so they’re both underneath it and wraps his arms around Danny tighter, and Danny knows he’s cold and appreciates that Wes does it anyway.

“What’s wrong?” Wes asks, sounding more awake now.

Danny feels momentarily guilty and then pushes that feeling away, knowing Wes doesn’t blame him for keeping him up. He never does.

Still, he doesn’t know what to say.

“Danny?”

“I don’t know,” Danny says softly. He feels bad, but he can’t tell if he feels bad about something or just in general.

“Okay,” Wes says. “That’s okay.”

Danny likes how easy it is. How easy they are. It’s good that they started out domestic, because now they know so much about each other that sometimes he doesn’t need to tell Wes what he’s feeling. Wes knows he gets in his head, just like Danny knows Wes gets in his head, too. Wes is better at getting himself out, though. He doesn’t need Danny to tell him the bad things he thinks about aren’t real, because he knows they aren’t. That doesn’t mean Danny doesn’t still help him, sometimes, but he doesn’t need the help the way Danny does.

Danny needs help all the time, and he’s just waiting for the moment that it starts to annoy Wes.

“Danny,” Wes says. “Shh.”

“Wh- I didn’t say anything.”

Wes reaches up and taps a finger against Danny’s temple.

“In there.”

How can Wes tell the exact moment Danny’s thoughts start to take a turn?

“What was up today?” Danny asks, unaware before he says it that he was planning on speaking.

“What d’you mean?”

“I don’t know. You seemed…” Danny doesn’t know how Wes seemed.

“I dunno. Just had an off-day. I didn’t think you could tell.”

“I could.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s okay,” Danny says. “I was just- worried.”

“There wasn’t really anything wrong,” Wes says. “I was just a little tired. Think I slept too long or something. Or maybe just too deeply. You know how that happens sometimes?”

“Yeah,” Danny says. “I thought you were- I dunno. Mad?”

“Why would I be mad?”

Danny doesn’t know. That’s the problem. He feels like he’s done something wrong, but he’s not sure what or why.

Wes sighs, but it’s not an annoyed sigh. It’s this sigh he does sometimes, when Danny gets like this, and it reminds Danny of Jazz when she’s sad, except Wes doesn’t really seem sad at all. He seems… tired. Or maybe… But Danny doesn’t know. He just knows that when Wes sighs like that, he wants to hide his face against Wes’s chest and let himself feel protected, even though Danny probably has more strength in his pinky than Wes does in his entire body… if the ghost powers count.

Wes’s thumb is rubbing against Danny’s hip, and it feels nice. Danny’s starting to get sleepy despite himself.

“I wasn’t mad,” Wes says. “I’m still not, before you start getting any ideas.”

“I’m sorry.” 

“Danny-”

“No, I know,” Danny says. “I just- I need to say sorry sometimes.”

“Only when you feel bad,” Wes says. “You should have woken me.”

“I wanted to,” Danny says. “But I was worried I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“You wouldn’t have had to say anything,” Wes tells him. 

“I know that.”

Wes sighs again and pulls him into his arms like he’s a rag doll.

“Try to get some sleep,” he says. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

And, like always, he does.


End file.
